Helena Horton

1 day ago | theguardian.com | Helena Horton

Labour is using post-Brexit freedoms to override EU nature laws and allow chalk streams and nightingale habitats to be destroyed, MPs have said. The planning and infrastructure bill going through parliament will allow developers to circumvent EU-derived environmental protections and instead pay into a nature restoration fund. This would override the habitats directive, which protects animals including otters, salmon and dormice.

2 days ago | theguardian.com | Helena Horton

Nightingales don’t sing much during the daytime. So when their clear, pure voices rang out from some brambles in Kent on a late spring morning, it felt as if they were campaigning for their home. Their music has charmed writers from Keats to Oscar Wilde. But over the decades, the little brown bird has had its habitat gradually hacked away because the thick brambles it likes to nest in have little use for humans.

2 days ago | theguardian.com | Helena Horton |Sandra Laville |Patrick Barkham

Labour MPs are planning to rebel over the planning and infrastructure bill after constituents raised concern that it threatens protected habitats and wildlife. The Guardian understands that about two dozen Labour MPs are calling for ministers to force developers to build more than a million homes for which they already have planning permission before pushing through legislation that rolls back environmental protections for the most protected habitats in England.

3 days ago | theguardian.com | Sandra Laville |Patrick Barkham |Helena Horton

More than 5,000 of England’s most sensitive, rare and protected natural habitats are at high risk of being destroyed by development under Labour’s new planning bill, according to legal analysis of the legislation. The Guardian has examined the threat the bill poses to 5,251 areas known as nature’s “jewels in the crown”, as some of the country’s most respected wildlife charities call for a key part of the bill to be scrapped.

3 days ago | theguardian.com | Patrick Barkham |Sandra Laville |Helena Horton

More than 5,000 of the rarest and most precious natural habitats in England are at risk of being destroyed under Labour’s new planning bill, according to legal analysis of the legislation. Here are just 10 irreplaceable wild places currently or recently imperilled by development that are likely to face renewed threats if the current wildlife protections are torn up by the government’s bill. 1.